Writing Ask Meme
20 December 2017 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeFrom butterflydreaming:
1) How many works in progress do you have?
Only two - my translation of Gefangene der Angst (which I haven't done any work on for months - I'm on the final chapter, but said chapter is 20,000 words long...), and my current still-unnamed
'Swedish story'. Plus Blue Remembered Hills, which has basically been finished for years and typed-up for a few months, but is getting edited for final publication as and when I get round to it. But that one has been mentally out of my queue for a long while - I generally work on only one thing at a time. I have enough trouble keeping going on one story without getting diverted into starting more projects (and my observation has been that writers who start another project before completing their first all too often end up abandoning both; starting is always easier than finishing).
2) Do you/would you write fanfiction?
It's pretty much all I write these days, although I started off writing original fiction; I was an adult before I even knew that fan-fiction existed.
It's much easier to get fan-fiction published, for a given value of 'published' (zines originally, now the Internet), and my original fiction has always been pretty derivative anyway. I tend to imitate my favourite genres.
3) Do you prefer paperback or ebooks?
Am I allowed to say hardbacks? ;-p
Books are easier to search on computer, but I wouldn't choose to read on screen if I had an alternative. (Having said that, I doubt I'd pay for zines now that I can get free fan-fiction online - I don't generally pay for books, and almost never buy them new when I do buy them!)
I managed to get hold of a couple of Gaston Leroux's French thrillers via the Internet and read them as PDFs on screen, but I still haven't finished the second one and maybe never will - if I'd got them as hardback copies via the library lending service, as I did with Monica Baldwin's "The Called and the Chosen", I should have read them in the bath and returned them on time!
4) When did you start writing?
My first stories were dictated to my mother; I had a book of stories typed up by my teacher at primary school, and since I left for middle school at the age of eight it was evidently before then. So I have literally been writing since I first learned to write, or earlier.
5) Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with?
I used to discuss my work via email with a Dutch friend, but I haven't been in touch with her regularly for a long time (or at all, for over a year).
Everything I've finished in the last few years I've posted on fanfiction.net, where I have established what you might call a small but select following.
6) Where is your favorite place to write?
Pacing up and down and around and around :-)
I get quite a lot of work done in corridors...
7) Favorite book as a child?
I've never understood how anyone can answer that sort of question. How could you possibly have one favourite book or author when there are so many of them? I probably had dozens, if not hundreds. Arthur Ransome, E.Nesbit, Susan Cooper, D.K.Broster, J.R.R.Tolkien, Alison Uttley, Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease, C.S.Lewis, Alexandre Dumas, Philip Turner, Joan Aiken - I'm sure there are dozens more.
8) Writing for fun or for publication?
Fun. (Or catharsis, given that my work tends to angst.)
Writing fan-fiction is a cast-iron excuse for not trying to get published in any case, since you can't legally sell your work!
9) Have you taken any writing classes?
No, never.
I don't take criticism well - I'm too insecure - and the idea is pretty scary.
10) What inspired you to write?
The desire to preserve the constant supply of stories in my head. I've always made up stories, and if you don't write them down, they get lost.
butterflydreaming:1) How many works in progress do you have?
Only two - my translation of Gefangene der Angst (which I haven't done any work on for months - I'm on the final chapter, but said chapter is 20,000 words long...), and my current still-unnamed
'Swedish story'. Plus Blue Remembered Hills, which has basically been finished for years and typed-up for a few months, but is getting edited for final publication as and when I get round to it. But that one has been mentally out of my queue for a long while - I generally work on only one thing at a time. I have enough trouble keeping going on one story without getting diverted into starting more projects (and my observation has been that writers who start another project before completing their first all too often end up abandoning both; starting is always easier than finishing).
2) Do you/would you write fanfiction?
It's pretty much all I write these days, although I started off writing original fiction; I was an adult before I even knew that fan-fiction existed.
It's much easier to get fan-fiction published, for a given value of 'published' (zines originally, now the Internet), and my original fiction has always been pretty derivative anyway. I tend to imitate my favourite genres.
3) Do you prefer paperback or ebooks?
Am I allowed to say hardbacks? ;-p
Books are easier to search on computer, but I wouldn't choose to read on screen if I had an alternative. (Having said that, I doubt I'd pay for zines now that I can get free fan-fiction online - I don't generally pay for books, and almost never buy them new when I do buy them!)
I managed to get hold of a couple of Gaston Leroux's French thrillers via the Internet and read them as PDFs on screen, but I still haven't finished the second one and maybe never will - if I'd got them as hardback copies via the library lending service, as I did with Monica Baldwin's "The Called and the Chosen", I should have read them in the bath and returned them on time!
4) When did you start writing?
My first stories were dictated to my mother; I had a book of stories typed up by my teacher at primary school, and since I left for middle school at the age of eight it was evidently before then. So I have literally been writing since I first learned to write, or earlier.
5) Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with?
I used to discuss my work via email with a Dutch friend, but I haven't been in touch with her regularly for a long time (or at all, for over a year).
Everything I've finished in the last few years I've posted on fanfiction.net, where I have established what you might call a small but select following.
6) Where is your favorite place to write?
Pacing up and down and around and around :-)
I get quite a lot of work done in corridors...
7) Favorite book as a child?
I've never understood how anyone can answer that sort of question. How could you possibly have one favourite book or author when there are so many of them? I probably had dozens, if not hundreds. Arthur Ransome, E.Nesbit, Susan Cooper, D.K.Broster, J.R.R.Tolkien, Alison Uttley, Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease, C.S.Lewis, Alexandre Dumas, Philip Turner, Joan Aiken - I'm sure there are dozens more.
8) Writing for fun or for publication?
Fun. (Or catharsis, given that my work tends to angst.)
Writing fan-fiction is a cast-iron excuse for not trying to get published in any case, since you can't legally sell your work!
9) Have you taken any writing classes?
No, never.
I don't take criticism well - I'm too insecure - and the idea is pretty scary.
10) What inspired you to write?
The desire to preserve the constant supply of stories in my head. I've always made up stories, and if you don't write them down, they get lost.